SLR ONLINE • RECENT POSTS

Fifty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), legal controversies surrounding voter identification, early voting, voter registration, campaign finance, and redistricting continue to raise fundamental questions that, when answered, inform a theory of democracy. What burdens on voters (importantly, the poor and minorities) are permissible? Are partisan considerations a legitimate basis for gerrymanders? Is political equality an acceptable justification for restricting campaign contributions and expenditures—or is that concept foreign to the First Amendment? Essentially, these controversies are concerned with the question of whose voice is given consideration. Who, in effect, gets to command the levers of power?[...]

On November 4, 2014, more than 21,000 Kansans who had attempted to register to vote were denied that opportunity. The cause? A law that went into effect in January 2013 requiring that registrants provide proof of citizenship. Kansas’s law is only one of the most recent examples of this country’s general trend toward stricter voting laws; several states have begun requiring proof of citizenship along with registration forms. The Supreme Court struck down proof-of-citizenship laws as preempted by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). But several states responded by implementing “dual registration” systems in which proof of citizenship is required to vote in state and local elections, but not in federal elections.[...]

After a year of debates and a month before the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC’s) rulemaking on network neutrality, the GOP has finally joined the party. Through a draft bill released late last week, congressional Republicans have taken a step in the direction of supporting network neutrality. That’s a good thing, and moves them closer to the existing consensus. Roughly four million Americans submitted comments to the FCC calling for real network neutrality rules over the past year, and polls show that both Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly support a ban on fast lanes.[...]

We live in a world in which the victims of cross-border mass torts de facto (notde jure) have no court to turn to in order to pursue legal action against American multinational corporations when they are responsible for disasters. The only way to provide a fair and legitimate process for both victims and corporations is to create an International Court of Civil Justice (ICCJ). This Essay seeks to start a conversation about this novel institutional solution. It lays out both a justice case, from the plaintiffs’ viewpoint, and an efficiency case, from a corporate defendant’s viewpoint, for why a world with an ICCJ would be a better place. The Essay also provides an initial blueprint for such an ICCJ.[...]

Russia’s war on Ukraine is an unlawful use of force that has imposed needless suffering on Ukraine and its people. Through (1) its unjustified occupation and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and (2) its support for antigovernment insurgencies in Ukraine’s eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, Russia is largely responsible for an unprovoked war that has killed more than 3700 people and forced several hundred thousand to flee their homes. Russia’s actions in Ukraine are an ongoing violation of international law. As Kiev considers its next move, it should be aware of all its legal options, which include freezing Russian government assets and suspending payments on debt owed to Moscow and its state-owned companies.[...]

The SEC’s primary goal is enforcing compliance with securities laws. Almost as important but less visible is the SEC’s rise as a source of compensation for defrauded investors. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 expanded the SEC’s ability to compensate investors by allowing the agency to distribute collected civil fines through fair funds. [...]

Today, the mechanism of the spending power helps to drive the gears of the modern federal machine. But early nineteenth-century constitutional debates demonstrate that the spending power is essentially a work-around, and a recent one at that—a tool by which Congress achieves certain political and legal ends while respecting the formal boundaries set by Article I and the Tenth Amendment. [...]

“Revenge porn,” referring to the distribution of sexually explicit images without the consent of those featured, is a growing problem in the United States. New Jersey and California were the first states to criminalize the practice, but state legislatures around the country have been passing and considering similar laws in recent months. Proponents of legislation, however, are confronting critics who protest that the First Amendment precludes criminal liability for distributing lawfully acquired true material. [...]